Reply to Commentators: [Horwich, Biro, Kim, Lara] Fred Dretske Philosophical Issues, Vol. 7, Perception. (1996), pp. 179-183. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=1533-6077%281996%297%3C179%3ARTC%5BBK%3E2.0.CO%3B2-U Philosophical Issues is currently published by Ridgeview Publishing Company.
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PHILOSOPHICAL ISSUES, 7 Perception, 1995
Reply to Commentators Fred Dretske
As they will doubtless notice, this is not so much a reply to my four commentators as it is a way of acknowledging their criticisms and indicating the general direction I would take if someone made me compose a more responsible answer. In these remarks I do little more than clarify my view -say where I stand, the position I would argue for, if I had more time. I thank each of my commentators for their perceptive and helpful remarks.
Paul Horwich: Horwich makes several pertinent observations before he accuses me of begging the question. He begins by noting -0rrectlythat I assume an externalist theory of belief. He notes, though, that it is one thing to assume that some beliefs are external (plausible enough), quite another to assume that all are (not so plausible). I agree. For the sake of argument, I was assuming that all beliefs were external. My point was that two individuals share qualia they are aware of (in the only sense it makes sense to speak of "being aware" of qualia) only to the extent that they share concepts for those qualia. Phenomenal Externalism is supported (i.e., arguments against it neutralized) to the degree in which one is a conceptual externalist.
Horwich goes on to say that even if we grant the idea that beliefs are individuated in terms of what they are about, and aboutness is constituted by some sort of causal relation, how can we rule out the possibility that some beliefs are causally related (in the right way) to purely internal properties? Maybe there are intrinsic qualities of experience that we are aware of and which define what it is like to have experiences of that sort. When we have beliefs about what our experiences are like we have beliefs about these intrinsic, these phenomenal, qualities. Everything depends, of course, on what one means by being "aware of" the intrinsic qualities of experience. I argue that we are aware of an apple's intrinsic properties (its color, for instance) merely by seeing (being aware of) the apple under normal conditions. We do not need concepts for the properties of the apple to be aware of these properties. I deny, though, that we are aware of (have experiences of) our experiences in the way we experience external objects. We do not experience experiences the way we experience apples. Hence, we cannot be aware of the intrinsic qualities of our experiences in the way we are of the qualities of the external objects we experience. The only sense in which we can become aware of the qualities of our experience (= the internal states that make us aware of such things as apples) is by becoming aware that our experiences have such-andsuch qualities, and awareness-that is a form of awareness requiring concepts. You can be aware of red without the concept RED, but you cannot be aware that something is red, that something LOOKS red, or that you are having an experience of red, without such a concept. Thus, there is no way you can become aware of qualia -properties of your experience- without concepts for those qualia. I admit, though, that I ran my argument concentrating on the external senses (vision, audition, etc.) and that the argument is easier in these cases. In these cases the properties that serve to distinguish experiences from one another are properties of the (external) things we experience. The argument doesn't work as well (it does not seem to work at all) if we consider, say, pain. John Biro: I, too, doubt that phenomenal and doxastic experiences are independent. Causally speaking, they affect each other. What you know and think (expect, fear, etc.) affects, to some degree at least, what kind of phenomenal experience you have. The opposite is also (obviously) true. I did not intend to deny this. My intention was to represent thought and experience as conceptually independent. I see no reason why a petunia must LOOK different to the experienced
gardener than it does to the two-year old. It looks different, yes, and this may affect the way it LOOKS, but I don't see why it has to. Biro introduces the relation of acquaintance, and says that in that sense (a sense he does not further specify) one knows every quality of one's EXPERIENCE. Putting aside the question of pain (see my comments on Horwich above), Biro seems to think it obvious that there is some sense of awareness (which he calls "acquaintance") in which we are aware of all the qualities of experience. On the contrary, we are aware of (acquainted with) the qualities we experience (the color of the apple, for instance), but this does not mean that we are aware of the qualities of our apple experiences (the qualities that make the experience an experience of the apple's color). The question I was trying to answer is whether one can be aware of the qualities of one's experiences (= qualia) -not the qualities these experiences are experiences of- without the appropriate concepts. Biro says that lack of a concept (e.g., change of key) does not "deafen" one to the quality of one's experience. It only prevents one from classifying it as the quality it in fact is. If I understand him, I agree with this. Not having the concept of CHANGE OF KEY does not mean one is not aware of (acquainted with, to use his word) changes of key. It only means that one is unable to identify (know, be aware that) this quality is the quality one is aware of. One is not aware that one is aware of it. That, though, is precisely what is necessary to be aware of the quality of one's experience (to be carefully distinguished from the quality one experiences). So, without the concept, one is "deaf" not to the quality one experiences (the change of key), but to the quality of the experience (that it sounds like a change of key). Finally, Biro acknowledges that it would be a mistake to think that the EXPERIENCE of red is red, but he suggests that it would also be a mistake to think that such experiences are internal states that involve acquaintance with redness. I confess to not seeing how this could be a mistake. Not unless Biro is using "acquaintance" as a very technical term. Surely, experiences of red are internal states (they go away when we close our eyes) that "involve" acquaintance with (at least an awareness of) the color red. Jaegwon Kim: Kim notes that Fred and Twin-Fred, though they do not share the concept of WATER (Twin-Fred has the concept TWATER), may share other concepts (SHINY, etc.) which gives them some common access to their EXPERIENCE of water. Though there is no aspect
of their experience (qualia) describable with the concepts WATER and TWATER (at least none that they can be aware of) they can both be aware that the puddle they see LOOKS shiny or watery in what Kim describes as a non-relational sense of "watery"). This is an important point (Horwich also made it). My argument is only that if Fred and Twin-Fred have common qualia, their access (awareness of) these qualia are restricted to those for which they share concepts. If they both have the concept of SHINY, then they can both be aware that the puddle LOOKS shiny. Their awareness of the common properties of their experience is restricted t o the properties they share conceptualizations of. In passing, though, Kim makes a related point. He says that it is an explicitly shared assumption of countless twin-earth tales that have flooded philosophy that water and twater are observationally indistinguishable -that, in a word, wateriness = twateriness. As far as I can see, this is (given the way I was expressing myself) the assumption that water and twater LOOK the same to people of similar sensory equipment (i.e., Fred and Twin-Fred). This "shared assumption" is exactly the assumption I meant to challenge. It amounts to the assumption that the LOOK of water = the LOOK of twater, that our experience of, if not our beliefs about, the puddle we both see, are the same. Why should one assume this if one doesn't assume that qualia (the way things LOOK) supervene on the intrinsic character of the experiencer? Kim presses me on what I mean by "access." What I mean by access is epistemological access: knowledge, awareness-that so-andso is the case. To use my example, the person who HEARD a change of key but who lacked concepts for describing this auditory difference, (even as a difference) lacked "access" to that feature of his experience. He was aware of a change of key (he EXPERIENCED the change of key), but he was not aware that it occurred or that he was aware of it. Kim thinks there may be a kind of access -what he calls executive access (which he describes as capable of affecting behavior without necessarily being reportable)- which does not require concepts at all. Maybe we can be aware of experiences in this executive sense without being conscious that we are having them. Kim suggests that Fred may be conscious of the watery LOOK of the puddle (he walks around it rather than stepping into it) without being aware that it LOOKS watery. I do not know why Kim describes this as consciousness of the watery LOOK of the puddle. It sounds to me like an (executive) awareness of the puddle's wateriness. I do not deny that there are features of the world awareness of which can affect our performance but which we have no concept
for. What I deny is that there are features of our experience of the world awareness of which can affect our performance which we have no concepts for. Finally, Kim asks why I have such a weak conclusion -that conceptual externalism allows (but does not compel) one to accept phenomenal externalism. The reason was that I took myself to be removing reasons to be a phenomenal externalist. Even if I removed all such reasons, that would not show that phenomenal externalism was true. It would merely show that there was no longer any reason to think it false. Wilebaldo Lara: [I did not see a written copy of Lara's comments. Nor -thanks to the postal system- did I receive the written comments in time to prepare this reply. So my brief response is from a (probably faulty) memory of the point he was making at the Canclin conference.] Lara suggests that if we take qualia to be externally grounded, then it is hard (impossible?) to see how the qualities of experiences can affect behavior. How could the fact that something LOOKS red to me affect the way I react to it (by, for instance, believing that it is red or sorting it with other red things) if its LOOKING red is constituted by relations to an external world. This is a good question --one I tried to answer (in the case of externally grounded belief) in Explaining Behavior (Dretske 1988). I don't see why the answer I gave there won't work, mutatis mutandis, for experiences.
